Word: mstislav
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...transplanted New Yorker would remain unimpressed. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1971, bringing yet more unnecessary acres of red carpeting to the city but also presenting thousands of nights of first-class opera, theater and ballet. The National Symphony is now led by Mstislav Rostropovich and is magnificent. There are other great institutions: the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian museums, the National Theater, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - all intelligently run, all national showpieces. Nor is the feeling of these places monumental and distant. One of the white blades...
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, Tenor Nicolai Gedda, Bass Dimiter Petkov, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mstislav Rostropovich conductor, Angel; 3 LPs). Soviet critics thought they heard a masterpiece when this, Shostakovich's second opera, was premiered in 1934. Then Stalin walked out of a performance and they listened again. This time they heard "din, gnash and screech" (Pravda). The work was withdrawn, and Shostakovich pursued more orthodox ways. A sanitized version, unveiled in 1963, found its way to the West on records, but this is the first recording of the original score. Harsh, erotic...
...said. The group also stopped in at Yellowstone ("It snowed on us, can you believe it?"), and the Grand Canyon ("It really made the tour.") Midway through the tour, the Glee Club spent about a week in Southern California, where it performed in the open-air Hollywood Bowl under Mstislav Rostropovich and the Los Angeles Philharmonic...
...Papp's Public Theater in New York City, the poet created an atmosphere of almost monastic serenity. A large, white, Russian Orthodox church candle burning on the podium provided virtually the only lighting. "It is more intimate for you, my friends," Voznesensky explained to an audience that included Mstislav Rostropovich, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and C.P. Snow. As Poet William Jay Smith, a favored translator and friend, read English versions from Nostalgia for the Present, Voznesensky could be glimpsed in the wings, his slight figure rigid with apprehension, as if braced for combat. Following the English readings, Voznesensky moved forward...
Schubert: String Quintet in C major (Melos Quartet, Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; Deutsche Grammophon). This is a near-perfect recording of Schubert's greatest chamber work. The playing and the balance between instruments are all but flaw less; Rostropovich's singing bass line is outstanding, and the gay third movement scherzo is joyous as a Highland fling...